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602       LIVING AMERICAN ARTISTS

this city, his picture of "Minerva interfering between Achilles and Agamemnon," which he sent to the Academy Exhibition. Before this, however, he had sent several paintings to the Academy, since he left New York, all of which had attracted some attention. But this classical subject was his first great success. It was purchased by Myndert Van Schaick, in whose family it still is.

In turn Page tired of Albany, and went back to New York, where he proposed to paint for a short time, then go to Europe to complete his studies. L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose: the artist fell in love and married.  Thus all his plans of European travel and study there, were changed or indefinitely postponed. At least so he settled it, and sat down to his easel well content-married to New York too.

During this happy time Page painted his picture known as "The Mother and Child," and sent it to the Academy. On opening day, when he saw his painting upon the wall, it so much disappointed him that he felt as if he could cut the canvas from the stretcher. And he would have done so, probably, but for the dread of making an exhibition of the painter. He went home sore-hearted.

Next morning Prof. Mapes called. "Why, Page, have you been asleep all this time? Your 'Mother and Child' will make your fortune."

And it did : the fortune Page most yearned and worked for was reputation, and this was his from that day forward. The artists at once took rank among the most popular painters of the city. Orders came to him much more rapidly than he could execute them, or rather than he would, for he had determined not to allow the temptation to make money lead him away from true devotion to his beloved art. He preferred to let pass into other hands the thousand dollars which he might have gained at some sacrifice of spirit, to earn a hundred at the work he loved.

It was not until 1850, when he was thirty-nine years old, that he fulfilled his long-cherished desire to visit Europe, which he reached after thirty-one days' sailing in one of Grinnell & Minturn's packets, landing at Dover, whence he crossed the channel to Calais, and at once proceeded to Paris. Here he stayed six weeks, during which he visited the principal collections of the city, but devoted himself mainly to the study of ancient art as represented in the collection of the Louvre. From Paris he went to Marseilles, thence to Nice, and there took diligence for Florence, passing through Genoa. Florence he made his home for three years, making occasional excursions to other Italian cities; his longest stay, however, a [[illegible]] summer- being made in Venice.

This was a season of hard work with him; and here began, and grew, his admiration of the works of Titian above all others. Whilst here he made many copies of the paintings of the great master which he sent home. He also received many commissions for copies which he executed. It was at this time, he claims, that he made discovery of the earlier processes in Titian's work-that he discovered the "ground" upon which the master painted. It happened that, one day, while closely examining the Venus at Florence, he saw that the bare edge of the canvas disclosed the fact that the painting was executed upon a white base, covered with washes of blue-black. This was, to him, the key-note of Titian's color, and he made it his own. Whether for good or ill, he harps upon it to this day.

From Florence, Page went to Rome, where he resided for five years, visiting England once during that time, when he spent a summer's vacation in London. During these five years he continued his study of the old masters, painted portraits of distinguished persons, Americans and others, who visited the Eternal City, and composed several of his most notable works. Among these last may be noted here: the "Venus," publicly exhibited after his return home, and now at his studio in Tenth street; his large painting of "Aaron and Hur sustaining the arms of Moses on Mount Horeb," also there; and a "Venus rising from the Sea," now in the Boston Athenaeum. Among the portraits he painted were those of Charlotte Cushman, and Mrs. Crawford, the sculptor's wife, pronounced by the husband one of the finest examples of modern portraiture-which expression of opinion, notwithstanding any favorable prejudice regarding the subject, was a compliment of weight, being Crawford's. Page also painted, about this time, the head of Robert Browning, which received praise hardly less lavish.

After an absence of eight years he returned to America. He remained here only a few weeks, and soon went back to Rome, where he shortly afterwards married his present wife, his first having died some time before.

And now he resolved to give up portrait-painting altogether - to aim at what he deemed to be still higher work, the purely creative. But the reflections, to which the efforts that followed gave rise, led him to this conclusions